We hate to be negative here at MOBIPOST, but sometimes we need to highlight some common mistakes to ensure nobody else makes them. Read the ’3 Mobile Marketing Mistakes to Avoid’ from Social Media Today and learn from the worst.
Mobile marketing. It’s the next frontier for marketing, and businesses are naturally excited to jump into it. More than likely you’ve already participated in mobile marketing in some way or are busy coming up with ideas of how mobile will fit into your marketing package. Perhaps you’ve created a BYOD security policy, so your team can engage with the consumer from wherever they are on their own device. With so much potential, it’s easy to jump into a new medium unprepared, and thus make mistakes. These mistakes are costly because they waste your marketing dollars and potentially harm your relationship with the customer, so before jumping into your next campaign, remember these three mistakes to avoid.
1. Failing to Optimize Content for Mobile
Most businesses were unprepared for mobile when the smartphone was introduced, so the first efforts at reaching the consumer through mobile were naturally flawed. Loading up a website meant for a desktop on a small screen leads to high latency and awkward scrolling. Links and search bars are also bad ideas for tiny touch screens, so in order to have an effective mobile campaign, your content must be optimized for that environment. Create a separate site to send mobile device users to, and make sure any other content, such as video, is small enough that it will load quickly on a smartphone.
2. Not Having a Meaningful Call to Action
Providing a link in a text message or a QR Code in a store is not enough. Scanning that code or going to that link takes time, and the consumer isn’t going to take that time unless they know what they are getting for their effort. Thus, it’s important to have a brief, yet specific, call to action, so you can let the consumer know what to expect, and then fully meet his or her expectations. If you have an offer, inform your customer that they will need to “scan for the coupon.” If you want to lead the consumer to the store, tell them to “Click here to find a store near you.” You get bonus points for this one if you automatically pull up the customer’s location and pinpoint the closest stores.
3. Failing to Segment
Mobile provides businesses a chance to segment their customers like never before, because marketers can track how the customer responds to different messages, as well as use location data from the device to create highly personalized offers for that consumer. Combine that information with transaction history and demographic data, and there’s absolutely no reason to send out mass messages that may only be effective with a small percentage of your target audience. If data analytics is new to your organization, start small by focusing on when offers are opened, or which ones are opened the most, and build from there.
Ultimately the principles of effective marketing apply to mobile just like every other channel, but mobile provides the extra advantages of being able to reach the consumer at anytime, and being able to evaluate and adjust your messages quickly to better meet the needs of the consumer. What other tips would you give for effective mobile marketing?
Original article found here.